recognised: fain, indeed, at this time, would I come and go unnoticed and
alone."

The horseman fell into a reverie, which was broken by the murmur of the
sunny rivulet, fretting over each little obstacle it met, the happy and
spoiled child of Nature! That murmur rang on the horseman's ear like a
voice from his boyhood, how familiar was it, how dear! No tone of music
--no haunting air, ever recalled so rushing a host of memories and
associations as that simple, restless, everlasting sound! Everlasting!--
all had changed,--the trees had sprung up or decayed,--some cottages
around were ruins,--some new and unfamiliar ones supplied their place,
and on the stranger himself--on all those whom the sound recalled to his
heart, Time had been, indeed, at work, but with the same exulting bound
and happy voice that little brook leaped along its way. Ages hence, may
the course be as glad, and the murmur as full of mirth! They are blessed
things, those remote and unchanging streams!--they fill us with the same
love as if they were living creatures!--and in a green corner of the
world there is one that, for my part, I never see without forgetting
myself to tears--tears that I would not lose for a king's ransom; tears
that no other sight or sound could call from their source; tears of what
affection, what soft regret; tears that leave me for days afterwards, a
better and a kinder man!

The traveller, after a brief pause, continued his road; and now he came
full upon the old Manorhouse. The weeds were grown up in the garden, the
mossed paling was broken in many places, the house itself was shut up,
and the sun glanced on the deep-sunk casements without finding its way
into the desolate interior. High above the old hospitable gate hung a
board, anouncing that the house was for sale, and referring the curious,
or the speculating, to the attorney of the neighbouring town. The